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SACRUM AND PROFANUM OR SACROFANUM? CHANGES IN THE UNDERSTANDING OF SACRUM IN THE MODERN WORLD

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Abstract

The article analyses the problems of sacrum as discussed by a few modern scholars - Walter Burkert, René Girard and Hyam Macoby, who link the reflection on religions (mainly Old Greek, Judaism and Christianity) to the data from anthropological and ethological studies. The text also relates on the discussion of the interrelation between sacrum and profanum as analysed by classical scholars, and promotes the concept of sacrofanum, which is the modern reference to the questions discussed in the article. When looking for the sources of the concept of sacrum the author makes references to the study on primacy. The text also touches upon the relations between the experience of sacrum and madness. In the modern world the border between sacrum and profanum is liminal, while man lives in sacrofanum where everything is (or can be) a sacral element.

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